Heartland Institute/International Conference on Climate Change (2008)

The Heartland Institute's 2008 International Conference on Climate Change was a conference held at the Marriott New York Marquis Times Square Hotel in New York between March 2-4 . The conference was organised and "sponsored" by the Heartland Institute, a U.S. think tanks that in preceding years received substantial funding from Exxon for its work downplaying the significance of global warming.

Documents written by or referencing this person or organization are contained in the Anti-Environmental Archive, launched by Greenpeace on Earth Day, 2015. The archive contains 3,500 documents, some 27,000 pages, covering 350 organizations and individuals. The current archive includes mainly documents collected in the late 1980s through the early 2000s by The Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR), an organization that tracked the rise of the so called "Wise Use" movement in the 1990s during the Clinton presidency. Access the index to the Anti-Environmental Archives here.

Conference for Skeptics

The conference was described by Washington Post reporter, Juliet Eilperin, as "a sort of global warming doppelganger conference, where everything was reversed." At the event, skeptics unveiled their response to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) report, edited by corporate-funded skeptic Fred Singer, argued that "recent climate change stems from natural causes." Eilperin notes that "while the IPCC enlisted several hundred scientists from more than 100 countries to work over five years to produce its series of reports, the NIPCC document is the work of 23 authors from 15 nations, some of them not scientists."[1]

The New York Times reports that while the Heartland conference "was largely framed around science ... when an organizer made an announcement asking all of the scientists in the large hall to move to the front for a group picture, 19 men did so." The conference invitation identified its goal as "to generate international media attention to the fact that many scientists believe forecasts of rapid warming and catastrophic events are not supported by sound science."[2]

The Heartland Institute offered "$1,000 to those willing to give a talk," and "a free weekend at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan, including travel costs, to all elected officials wanting to attend," according to the RealClimate blog.[3]

Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change

The conference resulted in the grandly titled communiqué 'The Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change'. A scientifically illiterate document largely containing opinion masquerading as fact. It disputes the greenhouse effect of CO2 , and disputes the consensus of scientists on climate change. It also claims "That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis." A position which should lead an enquiring mind to ask whether the Heartland Institute is ready to accept a naturally occurring global crisis exists . The document also boldly states "That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples." The promoting of adaptation over mitigation is not surprising although it should be noted no supporting evidence is offered and it is in stark contrast to the Stern Report which holds the opposite view and contains a great deal of evidence to support it. [4]